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Wandering Women: Urban Ecologies of Italian Feminist Filmmaking explores the work of contemporary Italian women directors from feminist and ecological perspectives.
Mostly relegated to the margins of the cultural scene, and concerned with women's marginality, the compelling films Wandering Women sheds light on tell stories of displacement and liminality that unfold through the act of walking in the city. The unusual emptiness of the cities that the nomadic female protagonists traverse highlights the absence of, and their wish for, life-sustaining communities. Laura Di Bianco contends that women's urban filmmaking--while articulating a claim for belonging and asserting cinematic and social agency--brings into view landscapes of the Anthropocene, where urban decay and the erasure of nature intersect with human alienation. Though a minor cinema, it is also a powerful movement of resistance against the dominant male narratives about the world we inhabit.
Based on interviews with directors, Wandering Women deepens the understanding of contemporary Italian cinema while enriching the field of feminist ecocritical literature.
List of contents
Preface: Women Make Movies in Italy
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
Introduction: Mapping Italian Women's Filmmaking
1. Walking in Resilient Cities:
Traveling with Cecilia
Fegatello:
The Nightless City
2. Urban Wandering, Scrapbooking, and Filmmaking:
As the Shadow, My Tomorrow, Poetry You See Me
Fegatello:
Ophelia Does Not Drown
3. Mothers and Daughters: Stories of Survival and Care:
The White Space, I Like to Work
Fegatello:
All About You
4. Coming of Age in the City: Garbage, Corpses, and Miracles:
Corpo Celeste, Domenica, Lost Kisses
Fegatello:
The Macaluso Sisters
5. A Psychogeology of the City:
N-Able
Fegatello:
In This World
Epilogue: The Cities of Women
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Laura Di Bianco is Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
